New Boeing VC-25B Air Force One has to be very specific colors and this is why it can't be changed for wild scientific reasons

When it came to building a new Boeing VC-25B Air Force One, it had to be painted in very specific colors – not for aesthetic reasons, but for scientific ones.

There’s been a lot written about the new Air Force One.

It may have been overshadowed slightly by the donated plane from Qatar, but it’s still gotten a significant amount of press coverage.

But one thing that has escaped examination so far is the color scheme, which was chosen for a specific reason.

Here’s what colors we can expect to see on the new Boeing VC-25B Air Force One

It feels like Air Force One is never out of the headlines these days.

An awful lot has been said about the $300m Boeing 747 donated by Qatar, with everything put under scrutiny from its unusual call sign to its luxury interior.

But lest we forget, there are already two planes undergoing transformations to become the new presidential planes.

These two Boeing 747-8s have had their delivery dates pushed back constantly, with costs escalating as a result.

Even the operating manual cost a hefty $84 million.

Now usually, with the Air Force One planes, we have an idea in our heads of what they look like.

There’s an American proudly placed on the rear, ‘United States of America’ running along the side, and a general aura of importance about it.

For lack of better words, it looks ‘presidential’.

But it turns out that more goes into the color scheme of these planes than the mere preference of any President.

While the Presidential planes of recent years have gone with a ‘baby blue’ look, this time around a darker red, white and blue livery had been proposed.

However, this was vetoed back in 2022 and dropped – meaning white and two-tone blue paint is still on the agenda.

But why?

It’s not a matter of taste, but science

Reports indicated that the proposed color scheme had been dropped because it could ‘drive additional engineering, time and cost’.

An Air Force spokeswoman gave more insight into the decision.

“Darker colors among other factors on the underside of the VC-25B aircraft might contribute to temperatures exceeding the current qualification limits of a small number of components,” Spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told FLYING Magazine.

Because dark paint absorbs more heat, this is seen as a safety risk – and a headache when it comes to testing under FAA standards.

Had they gone with the darker underbelly, engineers would have to model how the darker paint alters heat absorption in different phases of flight.

That means more lab testing, more aircraft-level validation, and a whole raft of redesign measures.

But despite this initial veto, reports from CBS News indicate that the original darker colors are back on the table, after President Trump’s re-election.

This amount of back-and-forth is something we’ve come to expect in politics, so only time will tell what shade these planes come out in.

Timeline of Air Force One